Script Hooks: Integrating Retrospect with Slack

Overview

Slack is an online instant messaging and collaboration tool used by over one million users. One of its compelling innovations is the ability to integrate a wide variety of applications to all go to Slack. With Script Hooks, you can monitor Retrospect from Slack as well.

Setting up a Slack web integration

This will create a URL that Retrospect (or more correctly, the Slack retroEventHandler) can send its messages to.
The only requirement here is to pick which Slack channel you wish Retrospect’s notifications to go to.

Figure 1. Add Incoming WebHooks integration for Retrospect

Once you choose Add Incoming WebHooks integration, you will get a screen like the one below with a WebHook URL.

Save the file. You are now done. You do not need to restart the Retrospect engine or application for it to start using the script.

Example

Testing

To test, run a short backup. This should result in a set of messages similar to the following:

Troubleshooting

Testing

If you do not get any messages, confirm the URL did not get cut off or have extra characters added. You can also test just the script by opening up a terminal or cmd window, and cd’ing to the eventhandler folder. Then type:

retroEventHandler "StartApp" "2/10/2017 12:01 AM" "true"

If there are any errors, they should display in the terminal or cmd window and point you toward a solution.

TLS 1.2

Slack now requires TLS 1.2 to be enabled, and older operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows 2008r2, do not have TLS 1.2 enabled by default. This causes Retrospect script hooks to fail until TLS 1.2 is enabled.